The present disclosure relates generally to configuring a networked system, and, in particular, to methods, systems, and computer program products for automatically generating best practices for configuring a networked system.
A networked system may support attachment of a wide variety of entities, such as host servers, disk array controllers, storage volumes, and client systems. A networked system may include multiple networks, such as one or more storage area networks (SANs) and/or local area networks (LANs). A networked system can be developed via connections to one or more network switches, forming a fabric through which the entities may communicate. As numerous hardware and software vendors have developed custom storage solutions, applications, and operating system interfaces, problems can arise in attempting to integrate multiple entities in a networked system. For example, a networked system may include host servers executing UNIX® and UNIX-like operating systems (e.g., Solaris®, Linux®, AIX®), Microsoft® Windows®, and IBM® z/OS®. When a variety of hardware and software products are integrated in the entities of a networked system, issues due to incompatibilities can arise even though associated product literature may indicate that the products should be capable of working together.
As new products are continually brought to market, the task of analyzing compatibility issues between the products when integrated into entities of a networked system can be daunting. Since the entities in a networked system can have a wide variety of configuration settings, including numerous attributes and associations for each entity, diagnosing the primary contributors to networked system configuration problems can be a challenging and time consuming task. Large teams of technical experts may be assembled to examine configuration issues and analyze data to determine best practices (e.g., solutions that prevent problems from occurring/recurring) for a particular system domain, driving up costs to the system owner. Even when network entities are identified as contributing to a problem, additional complications can arise in determining which attributes and/or associations are the most likely contributors to the problem, especially when the network configuration and/or problem data itself contains errors, such as errant user input or other misreporting of the problem.
What is needed, therefore, is a way to automatically generate best practices for configuring a networked system.